Government to drop lead contractor of health care site

Jan. 10, 2014

Written by

USA Today

WASHINGTON — The government announced today it is changing contractors for the troubled HealthCare.gov website, apparently ditching lead contractor CGI Federal.

The company has been linked to many of the problems surrounding the Oct. 1 launch of the federal health care exchange, which President Barack Obama has called “screwed up.”

“We are working with our contract partners to make a mutually agreed upon transition to ensure that HealthCare.gov continues to operate smoothly for consumers,” said Aaron Albright, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in a statement to USA TODAY. “We continually evaluate our needs and remain focused on ensuring consumers have access to affordable, quality coverage, and more than 1.1 million already have enrolled in a private plan in the federal marketplace.”

The government plans to replace CGI on the $90 million contract with Accenture probably early next week, The Washington Post reported. The initial launch of the website left people unable to navigate the system because of frozen pages, applications “stuck” in the system so that people could not log in, and long wait periods as the site was overwhelmed by visitors. The site was fixed by Nov. 30, and people are now able to enroll while experiencing low error rates and waiting periods, government officials have said.